


Beware the Droid

by Charity_Angel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: 1000 words, Gen, chopper the murder-droid, post-episode iv, rebel myths
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-01
Updated: 2017-05-01
Packaged: 2018-10-26 00:52:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10776048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Charity_Angel/pseuds/Charity_Angel
Summary: In which Luke runs into the Ghost crew.





	Beware the Droid

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Reactions Mk II](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10674684) by [Pom_Rania](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pom_Rania/pseuds/Pom_Rania). 



There is a legend on the Alliance base, and Luke isn’t entirely sure what to make of it. He’s 90% convinced that the rest of his squadron are pulling his leg, but there’s that last tenth – the part of him that listens to the voice of Ben Kenobi that still talks to him – that tells him that there might just be a shred of truth to it.

But, seriously? An ancient astromech, old enough to have flown fighters in the Clone Wars, who was so crazy-protective of his crew that he would purposefully injure, shock, or otherwise maim fellow Rebels who slighted them? Who the Rebels as a whole had nicknamed the ‘murder-droid’?

Ridiculous.

Then again, there were days R2 clearly got off the wrong side of the charging platform, and Luke wondered whether it was him. After all, R2s were a line that had been retired from production before he had even been born, so he had to be old enough. And he had been very insistent about Ben being a previous owner (although, of course, Ben denied it. Somehow, Luke trusted R2 on this one).

Older, Hobbie assured him. The murder-droid was older than even R2-D2. So old, he spoke the weirdest form of binary anyone had ever heard, and he had a caster. An actual _caster_ instead of a third strut.

That was kind of what sold it for Luke – even on Tatooine, where they got the absolute dregs of everything, the crappiest, oldest droids imaginable, he had _never_ seen a droid that ancient. It had to be a myth.

 

.oOo.

 

Luke believed that all through the move to Derra IV, and for a good month or so afterwards. Right up until he stepped back from his X-Wing, wiping the grease from his hands after repairing the engine, and tripped over an astromech. They both fell to the ground, the mech swearing at him. Or, at least, Luke _assumed_ the droid was swearing at him, because it was speaking an odd dialect that he couldn’t quite get his ear around.

“Sorry, sorry,” he said as he got to his feet and reached for the droid. “I didn’t look.”

He righted the mech. It was a very old model – all angles where R2 was sleek and rounded, and… sported a caster in place of a third strut…

“You know, you really shouldn’t run that close to the ships while they’re being worked on…”

The words were out of his mouth before he had truly taken in the droid’s appearance, but his eyes were soon drawn to the electro-prod emerging from its dented bodywork.

Luke glanced around, and took a small step towards the hangar door. The droid advanced, still cursing. He considered his options – he could make a run for it and hope that he was faster than the mech (unlikely); he could hop up onto his X-Wing and see if he could go up (again unlikely, considering the ceiling height and the fact there wasn’t much around for him to jump to); or he could make a stand and hope that the droid simply backed down from his lightsabre.

It didn’t. While it looked taken aback at first, the fact that Luke had a lightsabre seemed to spur the little droid on. It rolled close, dodging his half-hearted swipe and jabbed him in the leg. The current wasn’t very high, but it was enough to sting, and to make his leg jerk a bit.

“Hey!”

It chuckled as he jumped backwards and took a stance again.

He really didn’t want to damage the droid – the Alliance couldn’t afford to replace tech, even something as defective as this astromech appeared to be. And something with as much personality as this one seemed to have had to belong to someone, and they would probably miss it. He knew he would miss R2 if something happened to him: even though he had only known the droid a short time, they had bonded quickly.

“Chopper?”

A woman’s voice sounded out across the hangar as the droid made another lunge. It hesitated, and Luke had to readjust quickly to stop himself from overbalancing and causing a lot of damage.

“Chopper, where did you… Chop…?

The source of the voice was a green Twi’lek with tattooed lekku. Her equally tattooed eyebrows arched dangerously as she took in the stand-off Luke had found himself in.

“What’s going on here?”

“It was an accident!” Luke blurted out, glancing up at the woman before turning his gaze back to the murder-droid. “I didn’t mean to knock him over.”

“Uh huh. Chopper, what do you have to say for yourself?”

The droid made some sounds that, if he was any judge, sounded sullen. If Luke had to guess, he would suspect that this was the astromech’s owner.

“And did you maybe steer yourself somewhere that would have been deliberately in the way?”

There was a hesitation before the droid answered.

“Chopper! You know how to behave: you don’t threaten our allies, and you don’t get under mechanics’ feet. Now, apologise to the nice Jedi.”

There was silence. The Twi’lek crossed her arms and glared at the droid.

“Chopper…”

The next sound was definitely an apology, although it sounded particularly reluctant.

“Now go and make yourself useful before I have you running diagnostics on every single ship the Alliance owns.”

The droid disappeared as quickly as it had arrived.

“I’m sorry,” the woman said, watching him go. “I swear he’s getting worse with old age. You must be Commander Skywalker?”

Luke extinguished his lightsabre and took the hand she held out. “Luke.”

“I’m Hera Syndulla. Have you met my daughter, Sabine, yet?”

“I don’t think so,” he said. He couldn’t remember meeting any other Twi’lek girls in the Alliance – especially one young enough to be Hera’s daughter. She couldn’t be any more than thirty.

“Oh, you would remember her – she’s twenty-one, about this high, Mandalorian, pink beskar’gam, carries a lightsabre. Come on, let’s find her.”

Utterly bewildered, Luke followed.

**Author's Note:**

> Chopper the Murder-Droid is borrowed from Pom_Rania, and I'm fairly sure that snickering at Chop's nickname was not the reaction that was hoped for...
> 
> This isn't quite what I expected when the bunny first spawned, but there's still time for this to mutate into an addition to [Five Times Sabine met Luke](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8425147).


End file.
